[Bug] Android app extremely slow to launch

Steps to reproduce

After sharing this on Discord, it appears that for some users on Android, Obsidian is slow, even extremely slow, to launch and be responsive.

Expected result

Obsidian should take a reasonable maximum time to launch and be responsive, between 1s and 3s maybe (1s-2s seems common among iPhone users).

Actual result

  • On my phone, in Safe mode with default theme, the app takes 10 seconds to launch and again 2-3 seconds to be responsive enough to use.
  • With Minimal theme and 4 plugins enabled: 12 seconds to launch and again 3 seconds for responsiveness.

Environment

  • Operating system: Android 11 (LineageOS)
  • Obsidian version: 0.12.19

Additional information

  • Phone model: Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  • No micro SD card
  • Vault size: 640MB (1100 notes + 1200 attachment files)
  • Obsidian Sync enabled

Bearing in mind that Obisidan mobile isn’t a native app, but considering that:

  • it is by default a simple Markdown editing app;
  • my phone has 3GB of RAM and a 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800;
  • I don’t do anything fancy on my Android setup;
  • my vault isn’t large;
  • even after launch, most of the UI is sluggish (huge animation delays);
  • Obsidian is the only application on my phone that underperforms like this;

I think it is reasonable to think that something is wrong with the app under certain circumstances of use.

Edit 1: I’ve made sure that my vault doesn’t contains any HTML notes mistakenly stored as .md files.

Edit 2: I have removed from my vault the 10 largest attachments files (the 10 attachments larger than 9MB, mostly PDF files). Obsidian desktop and mobile synced, apps restarted: same load time, don’t change anything.

Edit 3: for testing, I’ve created a new empty vault from the mobile app. Empty vault, safe mode, default theme: 5-6s to launch, snappier UI (slow, but not sluggish). Empty vault, same plugins and theme as my main vault: 7-8s to launch and clunky, annoyingly slow UI.


Different users load times:

“Takes about 10 seconds on a [Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 (2021)] for me when opening it for the first time.”

“Is it normal for Obsidian on Android to take >15s to start or do I have some janky settings? To quickly jot down an idea on the fly this is far from ideal [Google Pixel 4a (2020)]”

" android has noticeable startup time which is sometime quite annoying while taking quick notes"

“I just counted and it takes me like 6 seconds to load [on a Google Pixel 4a (2020)]”

vs

“Obsidian loads in less than a second for me on a [Samsung Galaxy S20 (2020)]”

“My iphone doesn’t even take a second to load (max of 2 seconds occassionally) and once loaded it is fully responsive for me.”

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Unfortunately, there seems to be some issues with older Android phone models (even with an updated OS), whereby the empty app alone takes a few seconds to load, and it gets worse if your vault has over 1k files. Your device (Samsung Galaxy Note 3) seems to be made in 2013, which aligns with the observation.

Sadly I’ve tried debugging this issue and it seems that things are just slow on older Android phones. Latest models seems to struggle much less (I’ve gotten reports that 3k files on a latest flagship takes ~1-2s to load). The exact same app core also takes <1s to load on iOS (even on an iPhone 6).

At this point, there isn’t much we can do other than progressively load the vault content, which might help with load time but it could make the app less responsive for the first while. It also complicates the startup process a fair bit and creates possible race conditions, especially when community plugins are involved.

Given this is mostly out of my control, the other workaround, would be to upgrade to a more recent device. My low-end 2-year old Android 11 device takes a good 5s to boot Obsidian as well sadly.

Don’t know which is more to blame, Android or Obsidian’s stack, but it’s a sorry state of affairs. Thanks for taking the time.

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